Some of New Zealand's biggest companies have lined up in Wellington to announce ambitious plans for a local "Green Wall Street".
The plan is to trade "carbon credits" to help reduce greenhouse gases - an area of global warming in which some experts believe New Zealand could win.
"You have to reduce emissions because if emissions keep growing the world gets hotter and climate change gets worse," says Climate Change Minister David Parker.
The government is likely to ration the amount of pollution businesses can produce in a similar way to quotas for fishing companies. And those quotas could be bought and sold.
The proposed carbon exchange would see a coal-fired power station or an airline buying a cleaner company's left-over carbon quota.
New York has Wall Street and businesses including Air New Zealand, 42 below and the Stock Exchange are proposing that NZ creates a "green" Wall Street where global corporations can trade in carbon quotas.
"The emissions trading markets are something that businesses all over the world are saying are a sensible idea," says Business New Zealand spokesman Phil O'Reilly.
As they would on a sharemarket, the price of carbon will rise and fall depending on demand and the cost will encourage companies to pollute less.
A new business, TZ1, is being set up to create the carbon exchange and the idea is getting the ministerial thumbs up.
"This initiative that the NZX has launched today shows that there are business opportunities that New Zealand is likely to be at the forefront of," says Parker.
